Alexa Adams


Posted November 17th, 2010

http://mashable.com/2010/11/16/facebook-social/

The last article I have chosen to write about, pretty much sums up the main points we have been talking about regarding social media. According to the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, 250 million people access Facebook everyday. He shared this info with Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle at the Web 2.0 Summit discussion. That means that half of the 500 million people who have a FB account use it every single day. This is a significant number and it is continuing to rise. This means that socail media is and is going to continue to play a huge role in the way companies communicate with their customers. People use Facebook's photos, groups and messaging products over other similar products because these products are more social, basically just because they are on facebook. Facebook is the place to be. Companies that arent using Facebook or other forms of social media need to "Get on the Bus" according to Zuckerburg. Facebook is constantly reinventing itself with newer and better forms of communication. It seems that it is the future for companies that want to survive.


Posted November 4, 2010

http://mashable.com/2010/11/03/facebook-election-results/

The article is about the impact facebook had on the election and how the candidates popularity on fb predicted the election. 12 million people clicked the "i voted" in this tuesdays election. This number is much higher then the the 2008 election. According to the Facebook team, 94% of the candidates that won the election had more fans then the their opponent. On the fan pages candidates are easily able to communicate with their fans or people that are considering voting for them. Although this is an interesting finding, it is not very surprising. It makes sense that the candidate with the most friends would win as long as the those people actual go out and vote. Of course you have to take into account the people that will vote that aren't on facebook.

Posted October 28, 2010

http://mashable.com/2010/10/28/social-media-report/

This article is about how social networks are not killing our social lives. This is according to a new study that was released today by ExactTarget and CoTwitter. The study was broken up into two parts. One involved focus groups and the other was a survey of 1,506. Although many people believe that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are taking away from human interaction, the study found that this is not the case. It found that 27% of the people who said they use social networking all the time, also continued to hang out with their friends. Only 13% said their human interaction had decrease. When it comes to twitter, 46% of users reported they hangout with friends more often. The majority of users in the study reported that facebook has no effect on how often they meet up with friends. This is just one study however and I think there still needs more evidence before they say social media doesn't effect human interactions


Posted October 14, 2010

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20019629-501465.html

Electronic Frontier Foundation and UC Berkley are claiming that the Department of Homeland Security is now monitoring and gathering data on items of interest from Social Networking sites. They are taking note of "who's who" of the most popular social networking sites. They also kept data of people who posted on political events or activities during the inauguration of President of Obama and continue to watch these people. The articles points out that although the information they are looking at is open to the public, its troubling that the government is "collecting a massive amount of data on individuals and organization explicitly tied to a political event". It makes you wonder what they need information like this for. Are they invading peoples privacy?



Posted September 23, 2010

http://lifewise.canoe.ca/Living/2010/09/22/15437561.html?cid=rsslifestyle

Facebook and other forms of social media can rule your life according to this recent study done by Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. They conducted a week long study where they blocked access to Facebook, Twitters and other social media sites for students and faculty on campus. Students could still access it from their phones but not from the schools IP address. Many students decided to go along with the experiment and tried not to access facebook from their phones throughout the week. The study found that social media can increase stress, weaken personal relationships and cause lack of sleep. Some students said they didnt realize how addicted they were until they didnt have access to social media. The article compared the addiction to a smokers who sneaks a cigarette after class. Some students who couldnt go the entire week, would peek on their phones between class. It seems that social media addiction is becoming a bigger and bigger problem.


Posted September 16, 2010

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mashable/20100916/tc_mashable/how_social_media_has_changed_fashion_week_1

This article is about how social media has completely redefined fashion week. In the early 2000's before social media really took flight, fashion week was something that only buyers, celebrities and a few other select people could attend. Julie Fredrickson was one of the pioneers of bringing blogging to fashion week. It use to take a week for the rest of the world to see what happened at Fashion Week, but in 2006 things started to change. A few people that attended, Julie included, took pictures at the event, and started blogging about it and posting pictures within an hour after the show. It was the first time people could see things before the magazines came out. Now, if you are posting a picture an hour after the show, you are old news. All the major designers are plugged in online in some way during their shows. Whether it be showing a live video of the fashion show or backstage before everyone walks. Twitter and Facebook are constantly being updated throughout the entire week. In most cases, you have a better view of the show at home on your computer then some of the seats there. It is now easier for brands to show their vision thanks to Youtube and Facebook.